License
by sapphireswimming
Summary: Danny's 16. Driving seems like the next logical step.


**Woohoo! Celebrating the long weekend and our return to an internet connection with another long lost fic I found in the far depths of my folder. Written back in 2012, though, so please forgive if anything is too odd.**

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**License**

_July 6, 2014_

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Danny sputtered in indignation at the ultimatum. "But, Dad!" he began, turning to his Dad for a second appeal before getting abruptly cut off.

"No buts, Danny Boy. You heard what your mother said about it and let me tell you that we talked long and hard about this and we're not going to change our minds, no matter what arguments you try to make. None of the arguments I made to my father ever worked when I was your age… I never did get that pony…" he grumbled.

Danny rolled his eyes because it wasn't like he hadn't heard _that _one a thousand times before.

"So I don't see why I should give in to you," Jack continued, wagging a black gloved finger in his son's direction. "In fact, I bet it would break some kind of authoritarian father-figure code out there and you don't see Jack Fenton breaking good fatherly codes. So don't even bother wasting your breath, Danny, because it won't do you any good."

Danny threw his hands in the air as he protested, "But that's not fair! I'm sixteen. I should have my license already. Instead I have to beg you to even let me take Driver's Ed. You won't even let me look at the keys or try sitting in the driver's seat to see what it's like."

"That's because you don't need to yet," Jack responded, for once more calmly than his son.

"But I do!" Danny exclaimed, pointing to himself. "Everyone else in my grade has gone through the class and has their licenses. I'm the only one who still has to take the bus or get driven to school. And I'm serious. The only person in the entire grade who can't drive. Dash and Paulina and everyone in their group and all of the football players and just tons of other people have their own car! Even Nathan and he's a _band geek_."

"Sweetie," Maddie tutted, "it's not nice to say things like that. And besides," she continued, "you can't use the fact that "everyone else is doing it" as an excuse."

"That's right!" Jack confirmed. "What if everyone in your grade told you that you should stop eating fudge, would you listen to them then?" He leaned forward as if he needed to add weight to his point and Danny didn't even have to sit down and think about whether his dad had used what he thought was really the most important example he could think of.

Maddie sighed and put a hand on her husband's shoulder. "Jack, dear, let me handle this. Danny," she said seriously. "I know that most of your friends are already driving and some of them even have cars but that's not the way we've decided to do things. Right now, you have rides to everywhere you need to go. You can take the bus or have Jazz or your father or I drive you to school," she pointed out. "You can hitch a ride with one of your friends to the mall or the Nasty Burger or wherever it is that you want to hang out. And there's your scooter, too, if you don't feel like walking somewhere," she added.

It was true, but that wasn't what made this decision really get under Danny's skin.

"But that's not the point, Mom. I want to be able to drive. It's like, every guy's dream to drive as soon as he's old enough. And not only did you not let me take Driver's Ed when I turned fifteen, but now that I'm actually old enough to legitimately drive, you still won't let me take the class. At this point, I'm not going to know how to drive by the time I graduate from high school."

A cough from his dad, not so discreetly covering an "if you graduate…"

"Well, I mean, if I wait until then, won't it be kind of late?" Danny asked, trying to switch to a different tack. "You're going to expect me to have a job, right? And maybe to even be living on my own. How am I supposed to get to work if I can't drive? It wouldn't be right to depend on someone else to get me to and from work every day," he argued. "Not only is that putting a lot of demands on someone else's willingness to actually do that for me, and there's no guarantee that anyone _will_, but that means that I have to trust that person to get me to work on time and I can't make sure that it will happen every day."

"Danny…"

"No, I'm trying to think ahead here, to think like you should be thinking. I'm trying to take responsibility and you won't let me," he said, exasperated when his parents couldn't seem to see his point of view. He was trying to explain what he could. Not like he could pull out the big excuse— I actually hunt ghosts and protect the town and when I can't fly around without exposing my secret, it would kind of be really, really helpful to be able to drive around faster than I can run.

"Danny," Maddie sighed, finally realizing that Danny wasn't going to let this go until she came out with the most fundamental reason they had made the decision they had. "The truth is that your father and I can't trust you yet. I'll tell you right now that we would both love for you to be able to get your license, but you can't. You say you are thinking ahead and that's good, but you also need to think about right now. You're saying that you are trying to take responsibility and that's great, but you should do it in your every day tasks and not just the glamorous ones like driving. You need to take more responsibility around here. Right now. Like doing your homework, for instance."

"And doing your chores."

"And keeping your room and the lab clean."

"And doing your chores."

"Yes dear, that's what I just said," Maddie told her husband. Then, turning back to Danny, she continued. "When you actually decide to get your work done and come home before your curfew, we might start thinking about letting you do some extra things, like driving. But until then, when all we see is you coming home exhausted and late and you refuse to talk to us and you never have your homework done and Mr. Lancer has to keep on calling us to say that you're in detention again, how can you really think that we will let you get behind the wheel of the Ghost Assault Vehicle? We love you, sweetie, but that just wouldn't be a wise decision. Do you see where we're coming from?"

Danny nodded.

"And is there anything else you want to say about this? Or about what's going on in school with these detentions?"

He shook his head and walked out of the room, knowing that he had completely lost his case and emptied out his entire arsenal of arguments.

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**Is continued by / tied to _Turning Pages_ chapter 141: License**


End file.
